I am new to loading brass (6 months) and have been working on my Co/Ax with SS loading for my rifle and I have a Classic Turret for my handgun.

I am looking at starting to load my .223 plinking rounds on the Classic Turret but am wanting to be able to speed things up.

Right now I lube, resize and deprime, tumble, trim, debur and then hand prime. I guess I am wondering what you guys do who use progressive press's with these steps? Do you trim and debur first and then lube the case up and throw it on your press to finish the round out?

I am just trying to load out the most rounds possible while handling the case as little as possible.

Right now I lube, resize and deprime, tumble, trim, debur and then hand prime. I guess I am wondering what you guys do who use progressive press's with these steps?

You got it down ok, and I as well hand prime not so much because my progressive won't handle it but one less station to watch, but when I use extruded powder (varget,IMR,HODGEN). On my L-N-L any less crunching the better this way I feel only the powder and cycle them through without a hitch the smoother it puts them out.

Lots of luck on that.(LOL) I just stopped 5 min ago preping 50 more 223 cases. Puting together 200 cases to get ready to load all of them at one time.

First no you want to resize them BEFORE you trim them. Some might/will change length with the resizing process. I wanted to do it faster as well, so I bought a Lyman trimmer that lets me use my hand drill to do the trimming with, it does seem a little faster, not a lot but it is an easyier process.

I do all the trims at one time and then chanfer them as a second step. Now they are cleaned (tumbled), sized (X-Small Base), trimed and chanfered and are waiting for primer, powder and bullet. I was using my single stage press and a RCBS ChargeMaster 1500 for loading them. But, I have my Lee Classic Turret setup and want to load them faster.

This is for plinking rounds, for hunting and load development I still do them one at a time on a RCBS RockChucker.

A little backgound, I took my new Son-in-Law out to shoot the ARs about 3 weeks ago, and we did go through about 300 - 400 rounds. No problem I still have close to 1,200 rounds more that I have loaded. But, like any compulsive reloaded I wanted to replace my stock of loaded rounds.

So out comes the turret with my 223 dies (third set) and Pro-Auto Disk (double disk) set up on. And I will use the press to prime the cases with. No turret and index rod out, it just goes faster to prime cases that way.

Since I am parinoid about having the correct amount of powder in each case, I have always stopped after powdering the case to check that I have not missed a case and have a squib waiting to happen.

So today UPS dropped off a new RCBS powder check die.

At this point the cases have been preped and primed.

So Station 1 is setup with the rifle powder through die and Pro Auto Disk

I have read of some trickery (involving careful tracking of cases by number of times fired, and trimming every 5th reload) which involves trimming before resizing. The assumption is that all cases lengthen the same, and that none will lengthen enough to be crimped in the lands.

Another part of the trickery is to use a dry lube that does not require cleaning and will not affect powder flow though the case neck.

So, according to some, it is possible to reload bottleneck cartridges on a progressive press without any "breakout" operations for case prep.

However, I never had any luck trying this. After stuck cases and powder bridging, I got a Giraud trimmer and made case prep as painless as possible.

Now I do the following -

1. Tumble all cases
2. Lube with a pad and a nylon case brush (old fashioned way)
3. Resize, deprime and reprime at Station 1 on the press
4. Wipe off excess lube
5. Check each case with a cartridge headspace gauge (Wilson type) and sort into "trim" and "length OK" bins. Also check for high primers.
6. Run the contents of the "trim" bin through the Giraud
7. Resume operation on the press with prepped cases, but index before pulling handle to skip Station 1. (Press handles powder charge, bullet seat, optional taper crimp)

I've had very good luck with this. No more stuck cases or powder bridging, even with fairly long-grain powders (Varget).

While turret presses aren't progressive, a similar procedure can be used.

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